Vergil’s Coffee

Writing essays; some advice

September 10, 2009 – 6:46 am

Chris Judson August 31 at 4:16pm

If I were outlining a presentation on timed essays, I would jot down the following ideas (as a draft <g>):

1. Important: Consider and write for your audience (yes, most of the time it’s your prof and this is the reason you listen in class and figure out what amuses the instructor: what type of examples does s/he give…academic or cultural or personal. Does the prof like “original” thought or are they more interested with getting the right or correct answer(s).) Answers to these questions will probably indicate what type of essay the prof is looking for.
You’re not writing to please the prof, but you are fashioning your essay in such a way that the prof doesn’t get distracted by something wacky you do in your essays.

2. Always, always understand the prompt before you start writing and always make sure you answer what the prompt is asking for. Seems basic, but you’d be surprised. Sure you might have some really cool idea and/or example, but remember to bring it back to how that idea/example ties into the task at hand (usually by the end of that paragraph).

3. The general paragraph structure of the essay is probably claim (one of your ideas about the prompt), example, how that example ties into the claim, example, how that example…etc. It may not be a prescriptive as that, but the overall movement should be you making some claims and showing/giving evidence on how that idea is plausible. Remember, a timed essay should show the prof that yes indeed you get the material of the class and that you can think about that material outside in the general world/context (beyond mere academics). The clearer you can do that, the quicker the prof (or TA) can realize (and relax) knowing that you are learning (or have learned) the material.

4. In order for you to be comfortable with the material of a class, you really should read over all of it more than once. Yes, sounds scary, but the more “passes” through material, the more you have time to think about it. In general, you should skim through all the material for a class during the first week of classes (textbooks, syllabus, notes, etc)…skim. Then, become quite familiar with the syllabus. Skip (IMHO) any notion of sending a tape recorder of any kind to class in your stead (it’s a waste of time when you have to sit down and try and listen and make notes…don’t do stuff that takes away from actually learning material). The whole thing about taking notes is good and solid and you might try and make some general notes before you get to class (recopying notes seems to be a time waster, but some people really like it and swear by it). This point is important because it means that you have the basis for writing (instead of making up stuff on the spot). Study sessions are fine as long as you think in terms of taking through more about how all of the facts and stuff of the chapter connect with one another and then to the overall context of the class. Bring food and drink and take potty breaks.

5. Use a wide range of examples to help explain your thinking. I generally refer to three types: from your life, from your observation, from your reading. The last two are stronger and the first one you might use sparingly (but see #1 on this as perhaps the prof likes this). Other ways to explain an idea is by a simile or metaphor making sure that you include the tag line (e.g. Life is like a box of chocolates, you never…) <=showing life is described in “box of chocolates” terms.

6. Try and write a perfect first two sentences of your essay (grammatically and logically clear). It helps the reader relax and see that you can write and communicate and it’ll start your essay on the right path. Conclusions, then, probably aren’t as important and sometimes a sentence or two are sufficient for the task at hand. (Also, avoid fluffing your intro with a really long story…get on the meat of your essay…the actual content).

By Vergil | Posted in Writing | Comments (1)

Rockford Marathon

May 18, 2009 – 7:49 pm

A nice run on a nice day…here’s the numbers:
CHRIS JUDSON 55 M4044 M GOSHEN 46:48 1:42:04 2:41:26 3:37:54 8:19

By Vergil | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Coffee Stains: Watch more TV

March 19, 2009 – 9:04 pm

Yes, that’s right: you should watch as much television as you want. And, I would suggest that you watch some good television with your family. And, I’d like to mention: television is one of the best ways to grow your mind and strengthen your relationships. Sure, television has gotten a bad rap, but you have to admit: there’s some really good television programming out there and to not watch all of that creative impulse would be a shame.

Oh, and don’t believe all the garbage folk say about the glory of reading books; sometimes television is just better.

Some of my fondest memories growing up have more to do with something I watched on television rather than from reading a book. For us, it was home from school, then 2 hours of television, dinner, and another 2 or so hours of prime-time programming. On Fridays, lots of television and Saturdays were a day specifically made for kid television from 7 in the morning all the way to American Bandstand and, if you really were daring, you might watch Soul Train (if you understood it, which I did not). Outside for some riding around on bikes in the afternoon and then incredible television Saturday night and then there was Sunday…kind of boring stuff until Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and then, most grandly, the Wonderful World of Disney.

Growing up with television in the 70’s and 80’s was a very satisfying activity and I am no more less stupid because I didn’t read many books. I loved television and started to like reading during these years. Book reading is an individual luxury; television watching, a social imperative.

I think at this point I hear the voice of one of my student’s from English 10b: “You’re being hyprocritical,” she says in response to something I said or did. Oh, I read some children’s books yesterday and I just got finished telling the class that I was going to treat them like they were juniors (I said this in response to somebody writing “I’m gay” next to somebody’s picture on the seating chart on the back board).

“You’re being hypocritical,” she says and I’m taken aback. For some reason, I suppose, she was experiencing some disconnect with how I started class Monday and what I was saying Tuesday. I also think that my response was supposed to be “No I’m not.” Instead, I went with the teacher question of “why?” and she explains about the children’s book thing Monday and my junior comment Tuesday. And I respond “So, that’s being hypocritical?” and she caves and says something about it not being a big deal.

Back to those kid Saturday mornings and the 4 or 5 hours of television watching: those were really cool times for cartoons. I was usually the first person awake in our house and I would begin the watching around 7 a.m. But the really good stuff came on at 8 and aside for breaks to get more cereal, I camped out in front of our color television, soaking in wonderful shows such as Hong Kung Phooey, Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and the many educational learning opportunities from School House Rock. Honestly, nothing really compares to Saturday morning television in the 70s.

And then, the quality programming didn’t end in the morning: Saturday evenings provided one of the best back-to-back drama/fun combinations ever: The Love Boat followed by Fantasy Island. Two hours of special guests (lots of Charo for some reason) and great theme songs and time to watch good, solid, and incredibly predictable plots and subplots on the small screen. (A close second to the back-to-back combo might be Happy Days and then Laverne and Shirley, but I found Fonzi to be an annoying character and Laverne’s sewed-on “L” a bit distracting. Again, though, great theme songs…”We’re gonna do it!”)

We put limits on the boys’ television watching and honestly, they really don’t watch much television (though there was the 2 month stretch when they desperately wanted to watch SpongeBob Square Pants and we put an end to that quickly or, perhaps, they grew out of it). The boys really watch videos more than anything else: all the Pixar stuff and a lot of the DreamWorks features and all of the Star Wars films. They both read books and we read to them and we talk to the boys about their books. We did breakdown and bought a PlayStation 2 a year and a half ago and we also have limits on game playing time (about 30 minutes a day).

But they don’t watch much TV, ever. We did, though, have the television on when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas and we made sure that they were watching when the US troups helped tear out the statue of Sadam Hussein and we had them watch Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States. On our New Years Eve family celebration, we watch Dick Clark (uncomfortable as that is) count down the dropping of the ball. And, about the only shows we watch together are Star Wars: Clone Wars and America’s Funniest Videos. We all sit on the couch and watch the Clone Wars because we like the stories and the characters and there’s just something timeless about what is happening in that 30 minute frame of time. It’s not so much because we’re Star Wars freaks (though, I did see the original movie 12 times in the theater…a fact that I think sometimes frightens Evan a bit). No, I think it’s because the show is about the things we all want from ourselves and each other: hope and honesty and humor. And it’s when we are all there, all four of us, watching this show that makes me smile…knowing that in 5 or 10 or 15 years from now we’ll talk about the show we used to all watch and enjoy together in the house in Goshen.

As for the AFV thing, I don’t know. Maybe one never tires of seeing a cat fall off a table, a kid on a skateboard on a trampoline break a window, or a guy getting hit in the crotch a million different ways. It never gets old and you could never recreate any of those moments as effectively in a book.

You simply have to watch it on television.

By Vergil | Posted in Coffee Stains | Comments (0)

Coffee Stains: Killing time and being injured

March 12, 2009 – 6:10 pm

I live in a house with seven times zones and my ribs still hurt. Also, I did a bad thing in college and snuck out and saw a movie after curfew and I lied. And, I was the Resident Assistant responsible for enforcing the rules of the college with the guys in the house on Giddings Avenue. And, I don’t wear a watch anymore, but when I did, the watch was much like the one in the back of my classroom: a backwards clock. The hour numbers and the hands all run counterclockwise. I’ve had students tell me that they hate my clock because it represents time in the opposite direction. I hate being injured, though.

Fifteen days ago, I was playing in one of those intramural basketball games and toward the end of the game I took a shot by somebody’s head or body part into my ribs. And I didn’t think much of it: I’ve played basketball for awhile and I’m used to be banged around (I think I even exaggerated my fall a bit to pick up the foul…I know: a bit pathetic). So got the foul and got back on my feet and the game was over fairly soon anyway. Then the pain and then the worst part: I couldn’t run. I’m into my spring training for spring marathons and it is really annoying that I can’t be training now and I think it’s something I truly hate: not doing something I’m used to doing for me.

It’s not as bad as the time Michael almost shot my eye out with a b-b gun nor the time Brad Frost and I challenged Geometry and Physics on a foggy Saturday morning. The garbage men were coming down our street and most of the houses on Washoe Court were still sleepy. I was the early riser in my family and fortunately my neighbor, Brad Frost was awake and we were trying out a jump that we fashioned from a long piece of plywood and a few two-by-fours that were left over from the shed that my brother made for our rats. So Brad went as fast as he could (I think starting beyond the Ramsey house) and hit the jump and woosh! I marked how far he cleared with some chalk. Then my turn and then his again. And I was thinking that I wanted to fly farther and told Brad to put another piece of wood under the board making a steeper angle. I figured the higher the jump and faster the speed would allow me a farther landing.

Not so. I cranked down hard with my right foot and hit the jump and my bike stop stopped in the wedge of the ramps angle and my body continued its motion forward over the hand bars and my chin met the pavement of Washoe Court.

I’m crying and cupping my chin with blood spilling over and burst into my mom’s room to wake her with my crying, my call for her, my blood on my hand and now on the floor of her room. She takes me to our doctor friend and he cleans things up and puts 10 stitches in my chin.

It took me awhile before I rode that bike again and what’s worse: a Saturday ruined.

I would get stitches again, in high school when I slid into a sprinkler head playing hot vox in Winnamucca, Nevada and having a doctor from Great Britain try to explain how he got stuck in Winnamucca, Nevada. A year later, during a game against Piner High School, I got undercut while going for a high pass and landed horizontal on the basketball court after connecting with the floor with side of my head. More stitches, but nothing broken (which I suppose was a good thing).

A year later, I would get undercut while practicing at the small college I went to in Grand Rapids, Michigan. No stitches this time, but something wacky happened to my back and I got introduced to the world of chiropractors. What a cool experience: fall asleep while they leave put that hot towel on your back whiles your face is in that doughnut-shapped thing. And then, to have someone create a wonderfully satisfying crack sound from your back. I got better and returned to practice two days later. And it’s the next year when my friend Kenton Kober thought it would be a good idea to see a movie (against the college rules), after curfew (against the college rules), with two friends of ours: Rhonda and Debbie (need I say more). But Kenton was insistent about the quality of the film and that it would be worth the several lies and broken rules. The film: Back to the Future and though I might have had some reservation walking into the theater (yes, probably glancing around to make sure that we didn’t get caught). Kenton was correct: a great film with a great soundtrack and we would spend many trips that year in his Ford Pinto listening to Huey Lewis and the News. I think he even got the thing airborne like Streets of San Francisco and Dukes of Hazard after he started all the way back by Franklin Ave and hit the sharp incline into the student parking lot.

The landing wasn’t beautiful, but I don’t think we injured anything.

Not like my ribs and I’m growing a bit impatient. I got the doctor-ordered CT scan and x-rays yesterday and I’m thinking that the results will have the treatment being: just rest a bit more. The treatment is as unsatisfying as the occasion of the injury: nothing huge happened. And yet, I’m am kept away from something I enjoy doing because of a fairly insignificant event. Perhaps injuries are supposed to be insignificant, but I’m refusing the cliche “Maybe it’ll help you slow down and get a new perspective on life.” I say that’s lousy advice and I think I’ll just retain my angry old man persona who scoffs at anyone who he sees running down his street, I don’t wish them ill or malice; I just mutter: “Stupid runner.” Sometimes I find that I’m also muttering about taxes and I wouldn’t be surprised if you see my in a beige leisure suit yelling “You kids…slow down you sons of bitches!” shaking my right hand for emphasis but then holding my right side with my left hand because my ribs still are sore. I’ll probably cough a few times and go inside for a nap.

I think the thing I’ll be most upset about is realizing that when there is that time when my ribs are no longer hurting and I am able to run again, I will have forgotten the pain and will have realized that I wasted a lot time thinking about not running because the pain served as a reminder of my temporary limitations. For to be unable to do what we once did so easily sometimes becomes self-made crisis. And with this little realization, I sometimes will focus on the many representations of time in our house.

For instance, before we left for piano lessons today, I checked all seven time zones: It’s 4:31 pm in our bedroom, 4:07 in the bathroom, 4:02 on the Palm Pilot that serves as our alarm clock, 3:54 in Colin’s room, 3:53 in Evan’s, 3:55 in the kitchen and 3:52 on the Oregon Scientific Atom Clock in the living room. I tried to pin the setting of clocks on Lori but she’s denying all of it. “Well, ” she says, she’ll be responsible for the bedroom clock. Evan chimes in to express his dissatisfaction with the time situation in our house of many time zones but she cuts him off” “It’s not your problem anyway,” she says.

And she’s probably right–about the time and the clocks. It’s all relative, isn’t it: time and pain?

And then I notice she’s wearing my orange watch that I occasionally wear on long runs. “Oh,” she says, “I still can’t find my watch…the thing didn’t keep good time anyway.”

By Vergil | Posted in Coffee Stains | Comments (1)

Coffee Stains: Don’t get too excited

February 25, 2009 – 10:47 am

40 Plays in 40 Days

Project Summary: I plan to accomplish the ultimate renewal and experience for anyone who enjoys words: to see performances of all of William Shakespeare’s plays in one summer by actors who are amateurs in the park to professionals on an air-conditioned stage.

I’ll begin with the end to save you from reading the rest of this blog entry: My proposal for the 2009 Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity grant was accepted Saturday. This was my seventh proposal in as many years and I’m a bit happy (and, perhaps, relieved). The grant is all about “teacher renewal”: the idea that wouldn’t it be nice to give teachers in the state of Indiana the chance to do something really cool in the summer so when those same teachers get back into the classroom that fall, the students would be getting back a re-energized teacher?

We are renewed by what gives us happiness and even joy and every once in awhile–perhaps in once in a lifetime–we create an experience that is our ultimate “fantasy.” For the baseball fan, it is a tour of all the Major League stadiums in one summer; for the avid hiker it is to walk the Appalachian Trail; for the marathoner, it is to qualify for the Boston Marathon. And for me, an English teacher and one who spends his days in the classroom talking and reading and discussing the English language, it is to spend a summer with Shakespeare’s plays. The ultimate “rush” is to see all of his plays in one summer. It may mean little to the baseball fan or the hiker or the marathoner, but the concept is the same: to break from normal life and schedule and to over indulge in what pleases me the most: language in its finest form.

That’s the gist of the grant and I was feeling a bit like the Susan Lucci of Teacher Creativity grant writing. Seven years.

Shakespeare’s plays are the backbone to an education in the English speaking world and those plays are also a strong thread to what we teach in schools. Besides the King James Bible, Shakespeare’s plays are, in a sense, a major foundation for how we communicate as thinkers, writers and speakers in the United States. And the cool thing is that Shakespeare borrowed from other traditions and reframed older stories to fit into this language of his. And today we borrow from Shakespeare’s plays in our spoken and written phrases and in our entertainment in its many forms. To go and view and to participate as an audience member in his plays for a summer would return me again to the roots of that language which I use every day in my classroom.

I really liked all of my proposals and I took to heart the idea of what would really jazz me up. I felt as though the first two were good ideas but they were probably not well-thought through (what I mean: the details and the writing probably not that strong). I almost think the judges of these proposals thought “Okay. Nice idea, but really doesn’t sound exciting to me.” When I first heard about the grant, I thought it would be a great experience to train for and participate in the US Chess Open Championships in Pennsylvania. I really liked chess and I thought I would get a lot from the experience, but apparently I didn’t convey that very well. The next year, I proposed getting my private pilot’s license ( a wholly impractical accomplishment, because I had no intent or means to fly planes in the future. I just thought that the challenge of doing something out of my regular routine would be really cool). Apparently, I didn’t convey my desires very well on this proposal either.

But this is not a mere “totally cool trip” for an English major teacher. If you talk with the baseball fan, it’s not merely the stunt of going to every baseball stadium for the sake of just merely watching a baseball. For the hiker, it isn’t merely to say that one has merely walked the AT in a summer or two and “Here’s the pictures” to prove it. For the marathoner, it isn’t merely to run another 26.2 miles in a specified time so that one can merely run in Boston. For the amateur (literally, “the lovers”) of each of these pursuit, it is about awe and mystery and deep revival of one’s spirit.

It had been awhile since I’ve been home at this point in 2003, so the next proposal, I tried to think of a way of getting back to Northern California and do something that would rejuvenate my teacher batteries. Obvious answer: study and research Jack London in the Valley of the Moon area by Glen Ellen, California (just a valley over from where I grew up). I loved the quote from London: “All I wanted to do is to find a place to write” and that’s what I wrote I would do for that summer.

For me, to attend all of Shakespeare’s plays in one summer is in a sense a stunt: can I do it? It will force me out of my normal summer activity and into a movement around the Midwest for the occasion of play. But like the baseball fan, the hiker, the marathoner, this experience has a totally other layer of meaning to it, and that meaning lies within the awe and mystery of language on a stage. It is the thing I do each day in my classroom, where my classroom is the stage and language is the “thing.”

My next three follow a common theme: the inuksuk of the Inuit people in Nunavut, Canada. I’ve been drawn to theses structures for some time and thought it would be cool to go to Bafflin Island and #4: take pictures, run in a marathon in Arctic Canada, and write about the experience; #5: take pictures and build an inuksuk garden in our backyard; and, #6: take pictures and notes, travel around Northern Indiana to take pictures and notes, and then write a longer non-fiction article about the beauty of both landscapes. I felt really good about the last one and had a really kind letter of recommendation from the author Kristen Laine (a wonderful writer and a person whom I was looking forward to working with on the project). Apparently I couldn’t rouse the imagination of the judges, because I got another 3 rejection letters.

Each day as a teacher I engage in a play and in play; each person has their role and the stage is where, as essayist David Sedaris suggests, two or more people pause and look. I’m not suggesting that the roles and the script are stale; in fact, the roles and script are dynamic because we are human and when humans are put in a certain situation and certain conflicts arise, characters move the story line along and often we relearn lessons that have been repeated time and again. I am energized by being in the classroom; it is the reason I get up in the morning and get a giddy grin on my face because I realize that even though I have been teaching for about 15 years, the script will play out with my students and colleagues, allowing us to hit common themes that never seem to get old.

I kept the growing pile of rejection letters pinned to a cork board next to my teacher computer as a reminder of, well, sometimes I suck at stuff. What I mean is, it seems that one has to fail a lot to learn a lot. And I don’t say this to make a cute point of “keep on keeping on” pile of bullshit. I didn’t look at those letters and put my hand on my heart and swear “I know I can do better next time because I’m good enough, smart enough, and doggone, people like me.” Nope. The letters were a reality check: “you’re not that good, you know?”

So that is why I am requesting the Lilly Foundation to grant me the opportunity to do something that is truly one in a lifetime: to see all of William Shakespeare’s plays in a summer. Like most other people, I was introduced to Shakespeare through a class reading of Romeo and Julietas we trudged through the language and got occasional updates from Mr. Gier and the textbook on what was really happening. But, as I soon found out, Shakespeare ought to be heard, not just read, and so Mike Robert and Jeff Graves and Wendy Hanson would volunteer to assume Romeo, Mercutio, and Juliet, and I think I started to understand that the words make sense. Mr. Gier then showed us the film version and like most English teachers stepped in front of the “naked scene” which only perked our interest as adolescent boys. The next year we got Julius Caesar, then Macbeth.

So, I’m at Evan’s chess tournament Saturday and texting Lori every once in awhile to let her know how the day is going and around 1 p.m. we have the following text-exchange:

Lori: What r u wearing
Me: Nothing. How about you?
Lori: Im in the parking lot come see what im wearing
Me: Are you really here?
Lori: Yes
Me: Wow
Lori: No get out here fathead
Me: Okay

As an English major we were required to buy the Riverside Shakespeare, a tome that is the approximate size and weight as my 4^th Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary (the big one). We were required to read and discuss a majority of the plays and I simply could not get enough of the history plays and the Henry series. Still to this day, one of my fondest academic memories was a paper I wrote titled “Parent/Child Relationships in Henry IV (parts 1 and 2).” I loved reading the text and exploring the genius of Shakespeare as he sets up the strained father-son relationship and seeing how these real characters had a dynamic quality to them. I well up now when I read how Hal, turned Henry V, implores God: “much more would I do” in seeking forgiveness for his sins and the sins of his father.

And I go outside in the snow and I don’t see her and she calls and I ask where she is and she says that she’s “by the doors” and that’s she’s getting “a bit” impatient, that the moment is turning into something that doesn’t make her happy. And it’s then I realize that she’s at Goshen High School (where these chess tournaments usually are played) and I tell her that we’re just down the street at Chandler Elementary and she sighs and says that there’s a train and she’ll be there in a moment. She gets there and I walk the block or so to see what’s she’s wearing.

For the past 14 years, I have chaperoned a departmental trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario and each fall I see this as a “recharging” of my emotional and spiritual batteries until Christmas. Each year we see mostly terrific versions of Shakespeare’s plays, and I never tire of being caught up in the language and action of words on stage.

And then it hits me as I’m walking to the car that I must have received my envelope from the Lilly Endowment Foundation. Mind you, I’m used to receiving this letter on the Saturday of the last weekend of February. I was wondering, though, why Lori would have driven the thing to me at the school on this snowy Saturday. Then again, perhaps, maybe it really did have something to do with what she was wearing.

My proposal is not without some logistical issues. In a 300-mile radius of my house, there are at least 22 Shakespearean Festivals or theaters that “specialize” in putting on at least one or two Shakespearean plays a season. Not all of these festivals or some of the smaller “in-the-park” summer repertory troupes have published or announced their plays for the 2009 season. To judge the feasibility of seeing all of Shakespeare’s plays, I looked at the 2008 playbills and found that even the more obscure of Shakespeare’s plays were performed. So, with well over half of his plays mapped out (it seems like the history plays provide the greatest challenge right now), I will set aside a separate trip to either San Francisco or New York City just in case the other theaters do not have the few plays that I need to fulfill my goal.

I opened the door and she said: “So, you want to see what I’m wearing?” And I said “Okay.” And she said, well, open my coat.

I want to qualify what has been said up until this point. I want to say that we’re “not those type of people” or some other blushing confession of our marital relationship, but I’ll skip that for now. All I can say is that Lori said that I should open her coat and I did and there was a beautifully shaped envelope: The Big Envelope. And it’s just like the college thing: small envelope: thanks, but no thanks; Big Envelope: You’re in.

Throughout the entire project, I will be recording my adventures through a blogwith my FlipVideo camera and my little eeePC computer. Last summer, I did something similar where I recorded a daily vlog (video blog) called “No Sock Summer” and I plan on continuing that idea with this project. I plan on posting short videos of where I am and of some of the people I run into at the plays (whether in an air-conditioned theater or on a lawn chair in the park). Also, I will blog about my responses to the play itself—about the characters and themes I experience during the play.

When I got back to the holding area for chess parents back in the school, I told Evan to which he asked “So, does that mean we can get a new iMac?” (Thanks Evan…though I probably would have asked the same question if I were in his shoes). I twittered the newsand read through my contract and written responsibilities of grant recipients. I also skimmed though the other recipients and under ELKHART saw my name and proposal and then Andrew Cowells from the junior high. Pretty cool. Before I put the whole thing away, I reread the most meaningful part of the Big Envelope: “Congratulations! It gives me great pleasure to inform you that your proposal…”

Seeing 40 plays in 40 days will be one of those once in a lifetime experiences, and it’s connection to my classroom has something to do with the plays themselves (as I teach both Hamlet and Julius Caesar in my classes). But more than the plays is the text we create when we talk about what we have seen or read and I think this is a more profound idea that will impact me as an educator. I ask my students to read and respond, and the learning seems to happen in that discussion or the essay or the project that is to show me they have learned or are learning. I will use the material I have written during this project as springboards to further discussion with my students about their “readings” of what we view and read in class. I think the more my students see me as a reader/writer/thinker/speaker, the more I am a part of the community I try to build within my classroom. I suppose then I become a part of the script that is being played out in the stage of my classroom.

By Vergil | Posted in Belief, Coffee Stains, Culture, Indiana, Summer, Writing, chess, education, inuksuk, learning, running, twitter | Tagged baseball, california, chess, classroom, inuksuk, jack london, lilly grant, proposals, reading, shakespeare, susan lucci | Comments (4)

Coffee Stains: Tevye the Listmaker

February 24, 2009 – 11:34 am

We’ve been visiting a local church and the boys are really clueless. Both Colin and Evan have eaten breakfast, but as soon as they walk into the foyer, they are eying the food (”refreshments”) on the church-length folding table. Last week, the church had a special part in their service for those who wanted to renew their vows. Guess what was served after the service? And I’m a bit irritated at Evan and Colin because they simply can’t help themselves and is it worth withholding the white icing from my sons while everyone else was eating the wedding cake?

My boys are good at celebrating with dessert-like food.

We’re also going through this battle of what to bring on trips (even if it’s just a 3-minute trip to this particular church). Evan manages his stuff pretty well and I think he’s bringing a 3-ring binder that houses all of his schematic drawings and lists for a video game he was working on with a friend. Colin, though, isn’t as sure, but he’s been going with the Garfield at the Movies book and he’s been copying down the Garfield movie title with the actual real film title (”Catablanca” and “Scarf-face” are “Casablanca” and “Scarface”). Front and back of a wide-ruled paper, Colin has two columned his compare and contrast of the movie titles…accurately.

My boys are list makers and they get it from their mother.

It’s not that I have an aversion to lists: I’ve used them throughout my life and though there was a time when I only made mindmaps because I thought it was just plain cooler, I will list things as a temporary noting of “todo” and “brainstorm.” Lori, though, lives through lists and I think my sons are following in her 6 1/2 shoes.

One of my earliest lists I came across one of my earliest lists a couple of years ago. For some reason, I’ve always been the type to bring something to write in or on to whatever place I may be (I’m at piano lessons now, and I’m typing on my eeePC and using my composition book as a lap surface). So I must have purchased this little blue 4 by 6 spiral notebook for an upcoming week of camp at Hartstone in the summer of 1981.

A box score that I made while watching the San Francisco Giants play the Houston Astros on television when we lived in an apartment on Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa. The stats abruptly end at the top of the 4^th when the Astros got 6 runs that inning.
Me practicing my signature, several times as “Chris S. Judson” “Chris Judson” and “Christopher S. Judson”…my cursive was, well, not that great.
Notes from a sermon or a talk at camp. (It’s interesting that one of the more valuable things I learned at camp was that you could learn something from anyone. And I have tried to maintain that thought in life…though I found it difficult one year when the old man talked about the “Holy of Holies”… Old Testament stuff that he really got jazzed about; we were looking forward to swimming in the Eel River later that afternoon).
A “what to bring” list for the six-day, rustic-setting camp and it was pretty typical. Here’s the first column:
Pants (jeans and one formal pair)
Socks (3 pair)
Shirts (4, including one formal pair)
Shoes (2)
Guitar
Underwear (3 pairs)

(and it’s at this point I wonder also at the quantity of my underpants).

Sometimes we have these conversations that “he gets that from you” or “he cries about things just like you do” may be intended as a jovial jab, but sometimes can be an attack on those attributes we dislike in our partner or in ourselves or even more, our parents.
Sometimes lists have taken on a “one of those things” in a relationship some call the “honey-do” list (a phrase that makes me want to punch a panda in the gut). I admit: there’s been times that I’ve haven’t looked forward to a Saturday morning beginning with a list from Lori on things that she wants done by me. She’s gotten clever and now frames the process as a question: “So, what do you want to get accomplished today?” She’s subtle, isn’t she? But I think I’ve put aside the tension response “I don’t know, maybe watch TV” and have come to appreciate and honor the list. See, I think when a list is made, that list is an etching of things that come to mind that I might not recognize or see. I think I viewed the list as sort of an accounting for my inadequacies because I was just plain too stupid for either not noticing or because her intent was to nag me on stuff I really don’t want to do on my time.
“My time” … funny little saying, isn’t it?
As I was glancing through my composition today, I’ve noticed that Lori has made a list which appears to be knitting code: something about Size 8 needles and “Small Thee” and “Yarn is double stranded” and then, because I’ve glanced at enough knitting pattern books, to know that the rest is the pattern for the … oh, I think it’s a “Small Tree” because there’s two other headings of “Med tree” and “Large Tree.” I’m a bit irritated because she’s written this in my composition book and didn’t bother to tear it out. (Now that I think of it, I remember that this was from a trip to Borders in the Fall because the knitting pattern list appear before a mindmap of my CV I was putting together for an application and a mindmap/list of my most recent Lilly Grant proposal (and the brainstorming via list on what I should do and the circled “40 plays in 40 days” title when I knew I had a good idea).
As a teacher, I have a Lesson Planning book that really is a place to make lists of stuff I’d like students to do. Lately, I’ve been using it for making lists of things I want to do.
The envelope is probably the most portable and most accessible planning tool. I am still amazed at how I’ll make lists and notes on the back of envelopes….perhaps this is the great way to stay green and I wonder if pretty-boy Leonardo DiCaprio will give up on his brain-killing florescent light bulbs that you can’t simply throw away…no, he should go on the Today Show or Oprah and tell us the marvels of using the back of envelopes for our writing of these temporary thoughts.
Talking is fine, but there’s something about jotting down stuff as it hits you and for some reason, you can always find the back of an envelope.
Evan’s playing music that has a lot of notes on it. He has to act up them, says his piano teacher. (I’m not sure what that means either).
Colin’s watching Kung Fu Panda on the portable; he’s obsessed with chopsticks and China Buffet.
There’s an idea out there that we should save all of our stuff in digital format so that we can never again lose that scrap of paper that has that important note or number on it. So we then go through the process of taking those quick notes and scraps of information, key them all into some program with the hope that somewhere down the road we’ll be able to re-access that information when it becomes necessary. Only thing: it usually doesn’t. For example, I’ve tried, on several occasions, to keep our checkbook register on a software program. I am diligent for that first month and I am happy to see how reconciling and balancing our checkbook is some much more easier on the computer. But then, I go a week or two or even a month and I have to have these marathon sessions to enter all the stuff from the check register into the computer.
I’ve given up on the whole double-entry thing. Isn’t the idea to not repeat yourself? Why do the same thing and take more time for what?
As if information in digital form is of more use; I think not.
So who cares if you lose a number or a piece of information; what about all the information that is lost with a delete button? I
I think I’ve come to terms with list making and there are times that I can almost hear, to the tune of “Matchmaker” (Fiddler on the Roof) “Listmaker, listmaker, make me a list…” in our house. We have people who make lists in our house and those lists are temporary and they serve a purpose. It reminds me of that part of the brain that is the processing center; its function appears to temporarily hold (about 17 seconds, some say) information and to either move it into a longer term holding tank or to just dump it because it doesn’t have much meaning.
Lists are temporary and sometimes reflect temporary thinking that may or may not lead to some type of action. For me, next on the list is to cut this down from 1707 to under 1300 words.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Spellcheck.
Post to blog via the eeePC.
Insert Flickr pix into the post (tweak the stupid code for text wrap).
Better ending.

By Vergil | Posted in All Things Organized, Boys, Coffee Stains, Culture, Productivity, education, learning | Tagged lists | Comments (0)

Coffee Stains: Feeling a bit smug today

February 10, 2009 – 8:46 pm

The events of the past weekend and culminating at noon yesterday has left me a bit smug. And it really has more to do with the people talking about the event rather than those who were actually there. See, President Barack Obama came to Elkhart, Indiana and held a nationally televised town-hall meeting in Concord High School’s gym. I teach at CHS and for some stroke of fate, I got to sit behind Obama in the section “representing Elkhart County” a second time. He stopped there in August during the campaign. This time, though, I sat behind him as President and, I got to shake his hand after the meeting.

I shook the hand of the President of the United States yesterday. And I’m still trying to sort out the details of the day…still wondering if I should wash my hand (well, not really).

But I’m not smug that others didn’t get sit where I sat or shake the hand of the leader of our country; no, I’m smug because all of the opinions of the event that followed on the local and national news didn’t have the wonderful thought and feeling that I had and for some reason, I feel a bit bad for those who haven’t articulated my thoughts and feelings.

Smugness is that “pleased with one self” contentment that borders on the point of obnoxiousness and once you cross into the comfort of self-satisfaction,” it’s really difficult to recover.

I haven’t been smug about many things. I think when I answered “2+2” flashcarded by Mr. Matula in 2nd grade and my “4!” shout out surprised all of us. For Mr. Matula, because he just turned the card over and I answered as we saw it and for me, because, well, I decided that I’d guess “4” before he turned the card over. I think that was the point that I thought I was good at math and as I would see my standardized test scores, I would smile quite smugly that my results indicated that I was 3-4 grades ahead of my “average” classmates. College changed that though, when I took a Pre-Calculus class through correspondence and found that I had to strain through the word problems (”swear through” would probably more accurate).

For some reason, I was also feeling a bit smug the next year in 3rd grade in Mr. Eynon’s class when we would listen to Alan Sherman’s album “My Son, the Nut” with the classic track summer camp song. We would ask for him to play the cut again and Eynon would play it and we would be laughing all over again. I wasn’t really laughing after being hospitalized for most of Spring Break that year after my brother almost shot my eye out with a b-b gun. I do remember waking up quite groggy after 3 or days of sedation and watching lots of television. I felt really smug, though, when I got to be wheeled around the third floor and getting to eat an Popsicle.

I was quite satisfied with myself that as I got out of the car on my return home that I hadn’t told mom what had really happened and that I had kept the story that we fabricated for her. (That, for some reason in my thinking, that keeping one’s word would be more important than one’s keeping his left eye).

Perhaps I was also a bit smug that my step brother Dusty and I won the scavenger hunt in Gaithersburg, Maryland one July in 1977 at a summer day camp. I would visit my father (perhaps with my sister) for about a month each summer until my 8th grade year when…well, I’m really not sure why the summer visits stopped. I remember that Dusty and I were on the same team and that I was really into winning this hunt. Most of our luck was that “right place, right time” serendipity happenings and we won this really, really cool thing that “flew” along a line from one tree to whatever thing the other end was attached to. The ship hung on the string and gravity and slope made it “fly” across the way. I think it even made some neat flying sound. Anyway, I won one for our hunting and I was quite pleased. Later on that week, though, I would leave the dinner table crushed because my mother-in-law just reminded me, again, sternly, not to stab my fork so many times into the macaroni and cheese. I burst into tears as I left the table, forgetting to ask if I could be excused, but I had to make a quick exit anyway up the stairs and to my room for the month. I jumped onto the bed and I would cry real hard into the pillow. I don’t think my outburst had much to do with the fork thing or the rebuke. Maybe, perhaps, it was more the build up of kid-stress from a stressed vibe in the house as the stepson from California would wear out his welcome as guest while not really being a part of this current family.

The boys get a sort of silly smugness of self-satisfaction when they listen to “Put on Your Sunday Clothes.” Perhaps I should explain, but I’ll spare you too much background. Let’s just say that as a direct result of the movie Wall-e, both Evan and Colin know the musical Hello, Dolly. And if you’ve seen the Pixar film, you remember that Wall-e is enthralled with the music and humanness of the film version of the musical. The theme is the first thing you hear during the opening credits:

“Out there\There’s a world outside of Yonkers, Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby\There’s a slick town, Barnaby“

And that theme has been played 257 times (according to the stats on iTunes) and even the theme music for this past summer’s stop-action movie “Hello, Wall-e.” And you can see that goofy grin of smugness sometimes around the house as either one might be doing that high-stepping stroll down the main street to the train station.

So when I watched the media storm of Obama’s town hall meeting Monday, I was struck by how far off the mark the interviewer and reporters were in their retelling of the events of the day. Then came the pundits who wove their versions of the day including Rush Limbaugh’s claim that it was a disaster. Anyone who was actually there knew and saw that the President disarmed the crowd’s boos at the woman’s question and had the audience smiling by the end of his answer to her question about ethics. Rush didn’t show his viewers this. The talk show guy from Eureka wasn’t there either, but that didn’t keep him from calling Elkhart the dumbest town in the nation in regard to its RV industry. (Oh, and he has comments turned off so you can listen to him, but he doesn’t have to listen to you).

Some might say that these responses along with the people holding posters or passing out pamphlets before the town hall meeting are the outworking of the first amendment and that idea of free speech in action. And I couldn’t agree more: Free speech means speech that is free from most restrictions. One could say also, that with some free speech: you get what you pay for.

I’m feeling a bit smug because for some reason I got to sit behind the President of the United States and I got to shake his hand. Neither the reporters or pundits or even the talk show host from Eureka, CA got to be where I was. All they can do is rely on the excitement of their own self-talk, satisfied with listening to their own echo.

Me, I’m feeling a bit smug.

By Vergil | Posted in Coffee Stains, Culture, Politics | Comments (1)

Coffee Stains: White whales, Coffee and lightsabers

February 4, 2009 – 2:39 pm

Some call me “obsessed.”
I’m growing tired of people talking about my coffee. Honestly, it’s none of your business how much coffee I drink or what variation I have in my venti cup. Perhaps a couple of times a week, some yahoo will conclude “You’re obsessed with coffee, you know?”

It’s taxing, these little conversations or pronouncements about my “coffee obsession.” I doubt these folk know what the term “obsession” means anyway as they toss the word around like a stupid toy. For instance, Captain Ahab, I think, gets a bad reputation with his apparent “obsession” of chasing Moby-Dick. Tom Benke also gets pegged with “obsession” or “too much ambition” as he works on that yellow sheet of paper, recording his ideas for better displays in grocery stores in “Contents of a Dead Man’s Pockets.”

You know, is it too much for people to understand that I can just appreciate a good Starbucks grande Pike Place coffee in a venti cup with creamer and four Sugar-in-the-Raw^® packets on a daily basis? It’s not obsession, it’s preference.

I didn’t always like coffee. I think my first coffee experience was when no adults were around and my neighbor-friend Brad Frost suggested that we try some. His father was at work and his mom was at the local grocery store (the local Safeway store in Bennett Valley Plaza). Brad’s family had a microwave oven–the first family on Washoe Court to own one. We quickly found out that the thing was lousy at making grilled chess sandwiches, but was good at reheating coffee and so Brad put a cup of that morning’s coffee and in a moment or so later, we got steaming hot coffee.

It didn’t smell good and Brad suggested that we spruce it up with milk and sugar. We added both until the coffee black drink was now a light Mocha shade and we drank.

Yeah, it was terrible. I remember thinking that this must be an adult drink and that there would probably never be a time when I would like coffee.

Mrs. Frost was at the door and we quickly poured out the rest of the coffee and ran the dry wash cloth over the sugar-coffee-milk mess on the counter beside the microwave oven. Brad tossed the rag in the sink before she asked what we were doing.

“Nothing,” we chorused innocently.

She gave us one of those “I know you’re up to something” looks and told us to get outside and play. We were out the door before she could ask us to help bring the groceries in from the wood-paneled station wagon.

When we got to my garage, we went through the usual “What do you want to do?” business. Fortunately, simply the most exciting movie in the world came out in theaters last summer and every boy across the U.S. (and perhaps the world and the universe) could be found in lightsaber fights everywhere. Or, at least that’s what I thought. And fortunately for us, I had two lightsabers.

See, I think I liked Star Wars a bit more than Brad Frost. I had the Star Wars blanket, the Darth Vader digital watch, the Estes X-Wing model rocket, the complete sets of the first three series of Star Wars trading cards (gum eaten, yes), the radio-controlled R2-D2, the official Star Wars blueprints of various spaceships and droids, a set of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept drawings and paintings, the “Story of Star Wars” album along with the Star Wars soundtrack on double LP set. Oh, and I saw Star Wars twelve times in the theater.

You might say that I liked Star Wars.

But Brad Frost could appreciate a good lightsaber fight and I had written out the script for the final duel scene between Obi-wan Kenobi and Darth Vader from listening to my “Story of Star Wars” album quite a few times. I hadn’t gone through my freakish eight-inch growth spurt yet, so I think we would just switch roles. This time, perhaps, I was Kenobi and we worked through not only the lines but also the choreography from what I had remembered from watching the film those few times.

The lightsabers back then weren’t that sophisticated; they were basically a flashlight with a long translucent tube attached to it. You could even unscrew the flashlight and place a red filter over the flashlight lens to emulate Vader’s lightsaber. It was really cool when we would turn off the garage light and enjoy the glow of our lightsabers.

Unfortunately these were not very sturdy and they often broke or bent whenever you tried to bang your saber against your friend’s.

I thought about Star Wars all the time during sixth grade as seen in my many renderings of Darth Vader, R2-D2, Tie Fighters and X-Wings on and in my spiral-bound notebooks. Each night I would fall asleep to John Williams’ soundtrack on my record player that I bought a garage sale. It was one of those all-in-one units that was mostly white plastic and all of the glorious orchestra sounds were outputted through a 3 inch speaker. Still, I could hear the themes and I would drift into sleep dreaming of Luke and Leia and the Force and space.

My sons like Star Wars, more the later films (the “Prequels” over the “Classics”) and they have quite a collection of lightsabers between them (ones that you can really bang against another lightsaber without breaking). They also have the Lego sets and the Lego PS2 games. There’d be times when I find our oldest just listening to the soundtracks to the newer movies. And I don’t think I have ever thought that Evan or Colin were “obsessed” with Star Wars. From what I have observed, the boys will like something a lot for awhile and then move on to something else.

Neither of them like coffee, though…at least at this point in their lives. And, I haven’t seen them try to sneak a sip of coffee when the adults are away.

I recently read a detailed account of how the first Star Wars movie came about and it’s a story of people spending countless hours pursuing a common goal of making a “long shot” of a film. The book centers around the film’s creator, George Lucas, who was–according to some people’s standards–”obsessed” with making this movie. Human history is made up with many of these “obsessed” men and women who concentrate on one thing and delve deep while excluding normal life. Sometimes, it seems, that the many want conformity from all individuals and there’s a part of me that is happy for those who concentrate and who are not that “well-rounded.” Perhaps it’s those folks that push our imagination.

One of my favorite critiques about my coffee is how bad the stuff is for me. “Did you know how much caffeine is in a cup of Starbucks coffee?” a person might ask. Before I can answer, the quoter is off on a “real fact” accounting of numbers and amounts attached to my coffee. Sometimes I want to tell them that they’re just “jealous” or that a fresh cup of coffee is a gift to myself for the day or that the cup keeps my hands warm. Most of the time I do what Captain Ahab probably should have done more of on board the Pequod: just smile and nod.

At least that’s The Way I See It.

By Vergil | Posted in Boys, Coffee Stains, Culture, Star Wars | Comments (5)

Coffee Stains: Deaf and Dumb in LA

January 21, 2009 – 4:01 pm

The boys have discovered Bill Cosby- early Bill Cosby stand-up stuff, sandwiched somewhere between “I, Spy” and “The Cosby Show”…you know, the period a bit before and during Saturday morning cartoon “The Fat Albert Show” and early Jello-brand gelatin.

We bought Evan an iPod Shuffle for Christmas this year and later, during Winter break, we revived one of the original gum-packet size Shuffles and gave it to Colin, the 8-year-old, to listen to music. But both Colin and Evan ignored the music and went with two Bill Cosby albums as being the primary listening items. Both boys now can be seen chuckling to a few of their favorites: “Adam” and “Buck Buck” and a family favorite: “To my brother Russell Whom I slept with.”

And the comedy of Bill Cosby is working its way into daily conversation.

“Now LuketheCat is the man,” Colin might say. Then, perhaps, a “Buck Buck Number 1” will be called out by Evan and the both of them will start to laugh. There are some times, when in slight frustration with either one of them, that I might say “Something’s not right with that boy.”

I had heard some of the same Cosby riffs on a borrowed Sony Walkman in the early 1980s. The Walkman was the equivalent of the Apple iPod of today: It was the cutting edge technology and, though you could get another cassette player with cheap earphones, the real quality (and goal) was to have a Sony Walkman. I didn’t own a Walkman, but I did have a Panasonic tape player and recorder that stood upright and you could grab it by its handle and take it wherever you wanted (it was, mind you, the precursor to the boom box or “ghetto blaster” a term, as some of my students have noted, is pretty funny to laugh at). But the Panasonic was not really something that you wanted to bring a long trip, say to Tijuana on a junior class college trip. And somebody had a Walkman and shared the Sony name brand with the rest of us less blessed.

I think the junior trip to visit colleges in Southern California was the first time I got to hear an entire album/tape in real, clear sound. This was also the same trip where we went into Tijuana for some bartering for various clothing items and souvenirs and later, we watched a jili match. I remember walking across the border and listening to the borrowed Sony Walkman and feeling a bit lucky. And at the end of the day, I crossed back through the border into the US with my desired item: a pull-over off-white, pocketed poncho/sweater thing with a hood. (It was a popular item from the previous year’s trip). I was also happy that the back of the thing had the Coca-Cola logo on it. And I was pretty proud to make it back to the bus with the others wearing my find (I might have even bartered the guy down a couple dollars).

A bit later, I was beginning to sweat in the thing and took it off. Someone smirked/chuckled behind me (I think it was Russ or Todd) and I asked “What?”

“How much did you pay for that?” he said.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.

So I examined the back of the my newly purchased garment. A whisper and a few more muffled laughs.

“Oh, I see,” I realized.

The Coca-Cola logo I thought was really, in the same font and with the same wave red line, read: “Como Caca.” Yes, the equivalent of “Eat Shit.”

And at that point, I imagined some merchant in Tijuana laughing a bit at the many kid who bought a shirt that was more of an imperative statement than an advertisement.

The next year, our school choir took the trip toward Southern California again, but I didn’t wear my Como Caca sweater thing: I was a bit embarrassed at the message. This trip, though, wasn’t as exotic as a trip into Mexico. Instead, we were staying a night at an apartment complex for people who were deaf and blind (we might have even used the term “deaf and dumb”). About the only thing that we might be looking forward to is that the next day we’d be going to Knot’s Berry Farm (an amusement park that was eclipsed by the popularity of Disneyland).

No one was there to meet us when our big yellow school bus arrived late at night at the apartment complex (or, perhaps, no one heard us honk…we thought we were a bit funny for coming up with statements such as these). In fact, this was about the time when the Helen Keller jokes were being introduced to the kid joke canon.

Person #1 “What did Helen Keller say when she fell off a cliff?”

Person #2: “I don’t know.”

Person #1 (screams something inarticulate imitating a deaf person)

Or, a variation

Person #1: “What did Helen Keller do when she fell off the cliff?”

Person #2: “I don’t know, what did she do?”

Person #1: “She screamed her fingers off.”

We thought we were pretty funny.

We were told that some of the residents were looking forward to meeting us and that the next morning, after breakfast, we’d be meeting some of them. (More joking around with how those conversations would play out. One guess: see first joke above and add some hand movements).

So after a restless sleep in sleeping bags on hard carpeted floors and some cold cereal and orange juice, the director of the complex took us to another room with some, well, older people who had heads slightly nodding and bodies a bit slouched. Again, the director informed us that some of the residents were looking forward to talking with us and enjoy the company. (I think some of us smiled at some of our jokes again). The people in this room reminded me of the folks in a rest home that I visited as some sort of a service project and I, along with the rest of us, tried to cross that bridge into human contact with those from a different universe than us.

I think the director read our faces that asked the question.

“You notice that there is a small type writer in front of our residents,” he said. “This is a braille typewriter: you type and on the other side, the braille letter is typed into holes which the resident ‘reads.’”

Then, he looked around at us and said to me, “Here, why don’t you talk with Frank—one of our older residents.” The director sat me down in a chair in front of the small typewriter and Frank sort of grunted in a sort of happy grunt way and put his finger on the other side of the typewriter waiting for me to type.

“What do I say?” I looked around.

And then it came to me.

H I , F R A N K . M Y N A M E I S C H R I S .

And this older man with an old man cardigan smiled and then started pressing some levers on his side of the typewriter that typed his response from braille to regular type on paper on my side (this was much like a two-sided typewriter).

Hi Chris. Nice to meet you.

And I remember that it felt like a novelty: communicating to someone I wouldn’t expect to “talk with.” It’s that same novelty you get when you send and receive your first email or chat entry or Twitter. And like those ways of communicating, once the novelty wears off, you end up with same human problem: what to say now after “Hello.”

I told Frank that it was nice to meet him. He told me “likewise” and that the person sitting to his right was his wife. And I couldn’t think of what else to say, so I told him other people were here to talk with him and told him good-bye.

Goodbye Chris.

I want to say this was one of my first occasions of human empathy. I think I remember making a mental bookmark of this moment as something I should remember because I was feeling something for another human being. I don’t think it was so much as pity as much as … yes, I’m lucky and I have many things and Frank may not have hearing or sight, but he is still very much human, and…this was a first thought for me…he is just as human as me. I took a picture with my Pentax K1000 to image the bookmarked moment.

I’m half-expecting, any day now, to get a phone call from Colin’s school.

“Mr. Judson, we’re suspending your son Colin for making verbal threats to others in his class,” the voice informs me.

“Oh, is that so?” I say. “What exactly did he say?”

A clearing of the throat and an almost panting inhale.

“It’s disturbing, Mr. Judson, and the adults here are upset that the kids might feel threatened now my your son.”

“And, what exactly did he say that was so upsetting,” I press.

“He said, ‘Kill the boy.’ This is disturbing threat and before he comes back to school…counseling…”

And I’m laughing because I get the Cosby reference and the context of Colin’s line. It’s very human and very true and very funny.

By Vergil | Posted in Coffee Stains | Comments (0)

eeePC: Uploading to Vimeo

December 23, 2008 – 1:07 pm

I’ve come to grips that the eeePC is not my primary computer and really wasn’t designed to be. So, after the 3rd time restoring the machine to factory settings using the Recover CD, I’ve vowed not to keep loading on a bunch of apps that I really didn’t need. (You know, that urge to load up a new computer with as many things as possible before actually using the thing?)

One thing that has annoyed me though is the inability for Flash-heavy sites to run on the default OS of the eeePC. I exclusively use Vimeo for all my video work (via the FlipVideo) and the site always hangs during the upload process and the crashes the browser. I’ve Googled for an answer, but couldn’t seem to find one until I jumped on the #eeePC IRC channel and zer0her0 clued me in on the basic uploaders:

http://vimeo.com/upload/video/basic

And also a more minimalist version:

http://vimeo.com/upload/video/babyface

Both work fine from my 4g (701); I’m liking, though, the basic over the babyface one: Still like to see my upload progress.

And now, I can upload my vids while I’m on vacation and not rely on Lori’s laptop to do what I should be able to do on this basic machine.

Wee-Haw!

P.S. Apparently there’s some hostility toward Flash-based websites in the Linux world (and other OS universes) <g>.